


Wittenberg Days

by norah



Category: Hamlet - Shakespeare, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead
Genre: Crossover, M/M, rarelit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-25
Updated: 2008-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-02 04:38:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/norah/pseuds/norah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The affairs of heirs are complex indeed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wittenberg Days

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to Kass, Queue, and Brown Betty for beta, and to Penhaligonblue for correction and canon help. Written for QDS in the Yuletide 2008 Challenge.


_The curtain opens on a half-lit set of rooms, lined with dusty windows covered over with heavy curtains. Young HAMLET enters and then pauses, caught in a shaft of dim light._


  
HAMLET:

My studies long have kept me mewed in books  
and dusty lessons. Now have I emerged  
and to these undisturbéd rooms am come  
to meet with him from whom I too long have   
been parted. Even now, I think I hear   
his footsteps soft approaching. Can it be?

  
_(Enter LAERTES)_


  
LAERTES: 

Lord Hamlet, I am glad to find thee here.
  
HAMLET:

I find I am not glad to be found by thee. What dost thou here, Laertes?
  
LAERTES: 

I have a message for thee.
  
HAMLET:

As I once had a message for thee; I wished never to see thy face more.
  
LAERTES: 

The King hath charged me directly to deliver it; I am his loyal subject, and I obey.
  
HAMLET _(reading)_: 

My father bids me make haste for home, for he desires most urgently to see me. 
  
LAERTES: 

Wherefore this sudden summons?
  
HAMLET:

His letter does not say. Gave he no reason when he spoke to you?
  
LAERTES: 

No, neither did I ask; he wished that I should give thee the message, and that is all.
  
HAMLET:

Then I will heed him blindly and depart anon. And thou may'st report to the King that thou hast discharged thy duty. 
  
LAERTES: 

Nay, I return not to Elsinore. I am to Paris, there to study with the Jesuits.
  
HAMLET:

Nay, thou art to Paris, there to dally with the whores.
  
LAERTES: 

Not so. One day, God grant it be far distant, I will advise the throne of Denmark, even as my father adviseth it now. I must acquire a more perfect understanding of the most imperfect workings of this world, that I may be worthy of thy father's ear, and of thine in time. 
  
HAMLET:

Then thou may'st study until thy beard turns grey. 
  
LAERTES: 

I keep myself in hope that this churlish despite is but the product of thy callow youth and that in time thy manner will mature. 
  
HAMLET:

Old men say that water too closely tended will never come to boil; thou and thy barbed hopes should leave me now, that I may ripen free of thy regard.
  
LAERTES: 

This choler ill becomes thee. Wilt thou not walk out into the air? These dusty rooms are no place for solitary contemplations.
  
_(Enter HORATIO)_


  
LAERTES: 

Ah, no, I see thou hast come to exercise thy faithful hound.
  
HAMLET:

Nay, I had but heard this place was o'errun with vermin. I'd come to see the plague beasts with mine own eyes, only to find them dancing off to Paris, a foolish pie-eyed piper withal. 
  
LAERTES: 

And yet a plague remains, for still you linger. I'll try no more words with you, my lord. To you both, good day.
  
_(Exit LAERTES)_


  
HORATIO:

What bitterness lies foul between you both,   
that he should speak thus? Churlishness is not  
his wont, or so they say that know him well.
  
HAMLET:

I knew him better yet, and mark my words  
there is a rotten core to all his charm.   
Admired he is, by all he meets, but this  
veneer of sweet civil'ty hides a man  
whose only care's his own repute, more talk   
than deed, more mummer's play than honesty.  
I too was taken in, when first we met;  
bedazzled quite by clever words and smiles  
and with him spent a year and more of blind  
content. I thought him far beyond reproach;  
as he'd portray'd himself to all. Alas,  
his nature hath a vicious twist, that holds  
within each kiss indiff'rence, in his vows  
inconstancy. His honor's stain'd with this  
and that excuse, his loyalty unsure,  
his logic faulty, courage more like rash  
bravado, charity o'ercome by greed.  
I've seen him drunk past sense, I've heard him lie  
and boast, and well I know he cheats at dice.  
He is no paragon, my friend. Let not  
his outward mask deceive you thus; I once  
was fool'd and I would spare you my mistake.
  
HORATIO:

And yet, you loved him once.
  
HAMLET:

More than once, forsooth. 
  
HORATIO:

You know that such was not my meaning. There must have been some good in him, to win your affections even for so brief a time.
  
HAMLET:

Oh, aye, as there is some gold in the cheap trinkets that young men buy for whores; a thin foil for th' true metal.
  
HORATIO:

They say he is a worthy scholar and a most dutiful son.
  
HAMLET:

Scholar and son do not a whole man make. 
  
HORATIO:

Rumor breathes that he is formidable keen with his weapon.
  
HAMLET:

As for that, keen he may be, but lacking in finesse. I have been prick'd by him and I say 'twas no better than a training stick swung by an o'erconfident fool. 
  
HORATIO:

This bitterness ill becomes you. 
  
HAMLET:

I am become bitter through ill-met experience.
  
HORATIO:

And will you so dismiss my own embrace anon, when your affection, now so fresh and fervent, has worn dull and dutiful?
  
HAMLET:

Say not so! My love for you is wholly unlike. 
  
HORATIO:

I'm sure all loves seem so while they are sweet.
  
HAMLET:

And yet this one seems sweeter still to me.  
You are not fickle; neither are you cruel.  
Your steadfast nature much commends itself  
to me. Indeed, your loy'lty serves to guard  
my own true heart far more than yours; without  
your love, I'd feel no doubt unceasing pain;   
whereas if I were gone from you, you would  
recover soon your balance, find that calm  
acceptance that your nature ever seeks.  
Doubt not my love for you, my friend; my heart  
is fix't on yours for all this life to come.  
Indeed, to die in your embrace would be   
to pass from worldly care anointed -- aye,  
and shriven too, for never will I find  
such absolution through confession's rites  
as on your lips. I swear this on my life.  
HORATIO: It was a question only; you need not perish, pine, nor give such sacrilegious weight to all my kisses. Though if you so insist, you may come kiss me now, in case you should soon haply come to grief.  
HAMLET: 'Tis best to make devotions often, you have the right of it.  
HORATIO: Then come devote yourself to me a while.  
_(Kiss)_  
_(Opposite the oblivious couple, enter ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN. The light shifts to focus on them, leaving HAMLET and HORATIO embracing in the shadows.)_  
GUIL _(reading from a book in Latin, stumbling over the words occasionally)_: _Est et mihi fortis in unum hoc manus, est et amor: dabit hic in vulnera vires. persequar extinctum letique miserrima dicar causa comesque tui: quique a me morte revelli heu sola poteras, poteris nec morte revelli._  
ROS _(sniffling, dabbing at his eyes with a handkerchief)_: That's a sad story.  
GUIL: What?  
ROS: Well, they die in the end, don't they?   
GUIL: All stories have the same ending.  
ROS: Not for the gods.  
GUIL: Naturally, not for the gods. Mortals, on the other hand, suffer from the mortality that gives them their name. Or the other way 'round. Mortified. Crushed by the mortar of the gods.   
ROS: It could have been worse.  
GUIL: I'm not sure how.  
ROS: Pestles. We could all have been pestles.   
GUIL: A pestilence.  
ROS: It all comes around to death no matter which way you grind it. Depressing.   
GUIL: Not for the gods.  
ROS _(honking his nose into the handkerchief)_:  It's all right for them.  
GUIL: Do you want to hear the end?  
ROS _(hopeful)_:  Do they live?  
GUIL: If they didn't die, they're dead. It was a long time ago.  
ROS _(miserable)_:  All stories have the same ending.  
GUIL: There are a limited number of narrative tropes to choose from. What did you expect?   
ROS: I didn't.   
GUIL: Well then.   
ROS: I just wanted something...cheerier.  
GUIL: Cheerier.  
ROS: To be left a little hope.  
GUIL: The great sage offered the monkeys three nuts in the morning, and four in the evening. The monkeys were enraged, and they stamped their feet and chittered loudly. The sage reconsidered. "Well, then," he said to the monkeys. "You may have _four_ nuts in the morning, and _three_ in the evening." The monkeys were delighted, and they lived ever afterward in peace and contentment.  
ROS _(brightening)_:  That's more like it!  
GUIL _(muttering)_: "Ever afterward" is a nice rhetorical prevarication.  
_Pause.(looking about):_ I say, where are we?  
ROS: I can't remember having seen these rooms before.  
GUIL: We must have taken a wrong turning.  
ROS: This doesn't _look_ like the library.  
GUIL _(resigned)_: Lost again.   
ROS: Why does this always happen to us?  
GUIL: Absentminded.  
ROS: We'd lose our heads if they weren't attached.  
GUIL _(despairing)_: Where _are_ we?  
_Pause._  
ROS _(distracted)_: Look over there, isn't that Hamlet?  
GUIL: Where?  
ROS: Over there, in that alcove.  
GUIL: I see him.   
GUIL: What is he doing?  
ROS _(Starts to shout)_: Hey!  
GUIL _(muffling him with a hand, hissing)_: Wait! He's not alone.  
ROS: Mphhmphmph!  
GUIL: What? Oh. _(Removes his hand)_  
ROS: Who's that with him?  
GUIL _(squints)_: I can't see clearly — it must be his cousin.  
ROS: His cousin?  
GUIL: Kissing, therefore cousins. A kissing cousin.  
ROS: I used to kiss my cousin Angelina when we were children. _(Still transfixed by what's going on in the alcove)_ Never quite like that, though.   
GUIL: Oh, well, royalty, you know.  
ROS: I don't.  
GUIL: There are fewer of them, you see?  
ROS: What, exactly, are you getting at?  
GUIL: I'm just saying that they have to take into consideration constraints that you or I might not. A prince like Lord Hamlet cannot simply canoodle in corners with any fair maid who takes his fancy. In order to secure the succession and the bloodline both, those of royal blood are forced upon occasion to abandon more regular matrimonial practice in order to have, well...relations.   
ROS: Relations?  
GUIL: With their relations.   
ROS: Ah. And this is normal practice, you say?  
GUIL: Relatively.  
ROS: And that's what he's doing over there?  
GUIL: No doubt a prelude of some sort. For God's sake, will you stop staring!  
ROS _(still staring, doubtful)_: Royalty must be different indeed. I had always heard you needed a woman for that.  
GUIL: Well of course you need a — what?  
ROS: A woman.   
GUIL: Where?  
ROS: My point exactly. I may be ignorant of the lengths to which the nobility habitually go to ensure the continuance of their titles and lands, but I'm fairly sure you need a woman to beget an heir.   
GUIL: And Hamlet hasn't got one?  
ROS: I think we'd have heard if he'd begot an heir.   
GUIL: No, a woman!   
ROS: Or a woman. Though I believe in the usual course of things one begets a daughter and then waits a bit. Women take time to grow. But royalty, you know.  
GUIL: I don't.  
ROS: They're not like you and me.  
GUIL _(dry)_: So I've heard. Will you pay attention?  
ROS _(transfixed again)_: I am.  
GUIL: That's not a woman in that alcove, is it.  
ROS _(absently)_: No, that's Hamlet.  
GUIL: We've established that. And with him?   
ROS: His cousin, I gather.   
GUIL: A man.   
ROS: Yes.   
GUIL: Interesting.  
ROS _(still staring)_: Yes.  
GUIL: That could cause some problems for the succession.  
ROS: Oh, I don't know, they seem to be getting along just fine.  
GUIL: It's not a matter of compatibility so much as fertility. Royalty aren't _that_ different from us, I'm fairly sure.  
ROS _(looking away from the couple to focus on the conversation, irritated)_: That's what I said before.  
GUIL: Even a King can't transcend biology. Now, the gods, on the other hand —   
ROS: I'm not sure the gods are strictly biological in the first place.   
GUIL: Well —  
ROS: Or that the church permits us to admit the possibility that there is more than one.  
GUIL _(waving his Ovid)_: Hypothesis: A multiplicity of deities together may transcend certain procreative limitations. Theoretical evidence: a large body of Greek, Roman, and Chinese literatures detailing the emergence of new deities through a variety of non-standard methods, including emergence from the void, hatching from eggs, springing from foreheads, and virgin births. Empirical evidence: none.   
ROS: So we're back where we started, then.  
GUIL _(snappish)_: I'm still thinking!   
ROS: Yes, but —   
GUIL: I was going somewhere with that.  
ROS: Sorry, sorry, go ahead.  
GUIL: It's no good, it's gone now. How many times do I have to tell you that logical reasoning requires time? You can't just abandon a premise at the first dead end. You give up before we've even got started!   
ROS: At least I don't spend hours talking us in circles!  
_(They bicker, sotto voce)_  
_The lighting illuminates HAMLET and HORATIO once more. They stop kissing, though they stay entwined._  
HORATIO: I would that we were more alone.  
HAMLET: These rooms are ill-attended; I met you here that we might not meet with others.   
HORATIO: And yet seclusion is no guarantee that none will chance upon us.  
HAMLET: And yet I cannot help but kiss you again.   
_(They kiss once more, but Horatio breaks away)_  
HAMLET: Let us then find a place more private. I must return to Denmark, and I would not go without first saying my proper farewells.  
HORATIO: To Denmark? Whence these sudden travels?  
HAMLET: Laertes it was who brought me the news. He sought me here to tell me that my father the King hath requested that I make all speed for Elsinore.   
HORATIO: And he gave not the cause of this hasty summons?  
HAMLET: No, nor did I press him, being disinclined to speak long with the messenger. I will leave tomorrow, and God willing I will be with you again in a fortnight.  
HORATIO: A fortnight?  
HAMLET: I may not promise, but I hope it will be so.  
HORATIO: If you know not what the matter may be, you cannot hope that it will be so quickly resolved.   
HAMLET: Come, let us discuss this elsewhere; I am no more happy than you with these plans, but you of all men should know that we do not choose our destinies. I must go, therefore I will be gone.  
_(They break apart and begin walking toward ROS and GUIL, still talking)_HORATIO: Nature and fate conscript us all, but princes, it seems, are driven by more than natural forces. Your father calls you; your father is the king, therefore you are doubly bound to answer.   
HAMLET: It is not always a position to be envied, for all that it is coveted by some. But I cannot be other than what I am, nor would you have me so.  
HORATIO: I love you not for your title.  
HAMLET: You love not my title, you mean.  
HORATIO: You are that which you are, and you have the right of it; I would not have you otherwise. But today, no, I love not your title, for it calls you from me.  
HAMLET: Resign yourself, dear Horatio, and let us hope that... ; _(Noticing ROS and GUIL, visibly startled)_ Gentlemen!  
HORATIO: Good morrow Guildenstern, and also Rosencrantz!  
HAMLET: Greetings Rosencrantz, and also Guildenstern!  
ROS _(dissembling badly)_: Hamlet! What a surprise!  
HAMLET: Wherefore art thou surprised?  
GUIL: Only that these rooms are often empty.  
ROS: We'd never seen anyone else here, until we saw the two of you.  
HORATIO: Just this moment?  
ROS: Beg pardon?  
HAMLET: Did you see us just momently?  
GUIL: Yes.  
HORATIO: And not beforehand?  
ROS _(confused)_:  Of course we've seen you before!  
HORATIO: I meant before this moment.  
ROS: Oh.  
GUIL: Perhaps. Does it matter? One man's perception, or in our case, the perception of two men, is but a postulation. If we thought we saw you, and you both say you were not seen, then who can know what is true? The senses are fickle things, and belief in what is seen must be tentative if the vision is not shared by all in kind.   
ROS: And you can't have seen yourselves. I mean, have you ever tried to look at yourself? Really? You can't do it without a mirror, or at least a flat bit of water and the right light. Legs, surely, and a bit of torso, but not much above that. You can't even see your own neck. _(Contorts ridiculously in an attempt to do so)_. Certainly not your face. Why, you could be anyone at all, for all you know.  
GUIL: There you go. What we saw or believe we saw is immaterial.  
ROS: No one can say whether we saw you in fact. Though I thought we did. It was sort of dark in that alcove you were in, so I might have been mistaken.  
_(GUIL steps on ROS's foot.)_ROS: Ow! _(Injured)_ What was that for?  
HAMLET _(carefully, controlled)_:  We have come here to find privacy.  
ROS _(lewdly)_: So we gathered.   
GUIL: We understand and honor that, of course.  
HAMLET: I hope that you do, for you hold my trust even as I hold yours.   
GUIL: Of course. And therefore trust me when I tell you, we never saw aught.  
ROS: We didn't?  
GUIL: No.  
ROS _(shrugging)_:  Evidently we didn't.   
HAMLET: And for that I thank you.  
_Uncomfortable pause._  
HORATIO: Dear friends, how do you both?  
GUIL _(relieved)_:  Graced with such noble company, we do well indeed.  
ROS: Nobly, even. Whoever would have thought that such as we would someday consort with princes?  
GUIL: Prince, rather. There's only one of him.   
ROS: True. Though if you sort of squint a bit...   
GUIL _(squints)_:  No, it's no good. One will have to do.  
HAMLET: Many might say that I am in myself a surplus; it is good to see that such well-loved friends find my singular self no more than a bare sufficiency. But look you two, Horatio is more noble in his character than I by blood or bearing may aspire to become. You consort with him as well, thus, princes.   
HORATIO: This is a foolish fancy.  
HAMLET: Then prithee do you indulge your foolish friends.  
GUIL: We need not his indulgence; he is indeed a prince, for he consorts with our Prince Hamlet.  
HORATIO: One may kiss a ring and yet not be a bishop.  
ROS: And yet the prince's consort is a prince.  
GUIL: The Prince Consort, to be precise, which makes Lord Hamlet... _(trails off, realizing that he has painted himself into a conversational corner)_  
HAMLET: Also a prince, I am sure is your meaning.  
GUIL _(relieved)_: Quite.   
ROS: Until you become a king.  
GUIL: There! Twice royal, a most noble pair indeed.  
HAMLET: See, now, Horatio, they have crowned you properly.   
HORATIO: An this fallacy please you, I will accept it to be so.  
_ROS snickers._  
HORATIO: What is it?  
ROS _(to GUIL, trying and failing to keep a straight face)_:  My, that's a big fallacy you've got there.  
_ROS giggles as GUIL, HAMLET, and HORATIO roll their eyes at one another._  
HAMLET: He is too easily entertained, methinks.  
HORATIO _(to ROS)_: I meant a _logical_ fallacy, as well you know.  
GUIL _(musing)_: Why do we call it that? It's not as though there are other sorts of fallacies from which we need to distinguish it. It's an oxymoron, really. Logical...fallacy. It can hardly be both.   
_Each time they say the word "fallacy," ROS snorts or snickers._  
HORATIO: Are you quite done?  
GUIL: Leave him to it.  
HAMLET: Like an honest murder, or a chaste whore, then. A logical fallacy.   
GUIL: An oxymoron.  
ROS _(still wheezing slightly)_:  Like a savvy moron.  
GUIL: An idiot savant.  
ROS: There was one of those about when we were growing up. Martin, the cook's nephew. You remember him?   
GUIL &amp; HAMLET _(simultaneously)_: No.  
ROS: He could recite anything from memory.   
HORATIO: Anything?  
ROS: Anything he heard once.   
GUIL: Extraordinary. Who knows what heights the mind might reach without forgetfulness?  
ROS: All the servants used to pool their coins to send him to see any mummer's show that came through. He'd tell the plays to everyone when he came back, over and over. I don't think he understood them, mind you. Rather like a parrot.  
GUIL: Or a mockingbird.  
ROS: He was quite good, though. Did the voices and everything.  
GUIL: A parrot, escaped from the town, curses volubly, demanding crackers from an audience of sparrows. "Oh!" the sparrows say to one another. "How bright his feathers are! It must be Art."  
ROS: They used to let me come to the kitchen, when I was small, and listen with the rest.  
GUIL: The root of your nuanced appreciation for theatre, no doubt.  
ROS _(excitedly)_: I say! Hamlet! We're going out tomorrow eve, and you two should come with.   
GUIL: There are new players at the fencing school, doing that Italian play, you know, the one with the treacherous Duke and all the corpses.  
HAMLET: New players, you say?   
ROS: Aye, come in but lately from London.  
HAMLET: An I could, I would most happily accompany you, my most excellent good friends. But my father hath called me back to Denmark, and I must presently take my leave of Wittenberg and make my way thither.  
ROS: You're leaving?  
GUIL: Did the king provide a reason, that he so hastily should summon you?  
HAMLET: Reason I need not; love and duty both compel me to go at once. My sovereign and father asks that I return, and that is all I know.  
ROS: Perhaps he's ill.  
HORATIO: Such ill-omened speculations are unkind.  
ROS: I never meant - I mean, he's never called Hamlet back so urgently before.  
GUIL: It could be a whim.   
ROS: Or a war.  
GUIL: Something personal, something he wouldn't confide to a messenger.  
ROS: Something to do with the Queen.  
GUIL: Or politics, perhaps.  
ROS: Intrigues.  
HAMLET:_Enough._  
HORATIO: Who are we to presume to know the mind of the King?   
HAMLET: His reasons are sufficient by reason of being his.  
HORATIO: And this guessing is a futile endeavor. I can't conceive...   
GUIL _(interrupting, snapping his fingers)_: That's it!  
HORATIO _(puzzled)_:  What?  
GUIL: You can't conceive.   
ROS _(sagely)_:  It's a problem.   
GUIL: Hypothesis: The king has called Hamlet back to forge an alliance.  
ROS: Or an heir.  
GUIL: Or both.  
ROS: Or both.   
HAMLET _(tightly)_:  I mislike your meaning.  
GUIL: It is plausible, though.  
ROS: Likely, even.  
HORATIO: You think the king has found Hamlet a wife?  
GUIL: He _is_ the king's only heir.  
ROS: And of a marriageable age.  
GUIL: And I have heard that the crown prince of Norway has a sister.  
HAMLET: Many men have sisters, and many fathers daughters, and yet I have not been married before now.  
HORATIO: True, and yet you must know that this has long dismayed the good queen your mother.  
HAMLET: Is even my heart not my own to give?  
GUIL: I think you may be laboring under a misconception.  
ROS: Exactly! He needs a miss.   
GUIL: What?  
ROS: And a conception.   
GUIL: What are you talking about?  
ROS: And, eventually, labor. _Et voilá_, an heir, everyone is happy, and Hamlet can go back to whatever it is we did not see him doing with Horatio just now.   
HORATIO _(amused)_:  He jests and yet he hath the right of it.   
A marriage is no more a heart than a land's  
a king; it's best, perhaps, if they should coincide,  
but one may flourish in its way without  
the other be involv'd. Let state affairs  
remain affairs of state; mere politics  
cannot quench love; nor marriage drown its light.  
So to speak.   
GUIL: He's quite right, you know.  
ROS: Why, you could pop home, publish the banns, make quick work of the matter, and be back before the snows fall.   
HAMLET: So you would have me woo some Nordic lass  
with am'rous protestations, whilst my heart  
is with my true companion? Must I say,   
"Beloved, art my soul's idol," or "Thou  
art fair, thy hair's of gold," and this and that  
insipid phrase and turn my face from love   
to falsify my vows before my God?   
For shame, that you suggest it. Never shall  
I so betray us both, that I should wed.  
HORATIO: And yet it's duty drives us to propose  
that you should marry as thy mother, aye,   
and father too would have it. Always have  
I known that you would need an heir; I am  
resigned to this necessity. You betray  
not me, nor will you lose me thus. It shall  
be no impediment; you and I may love  
as close companions, side by side before  
both man and God.  
ROS: Well, not _just_ companions.  
HORATIO: No.  
HAMLET: And think you not the court will know to whose bedchambers I retire each night?  
HORATIO: And do you care so very much what your courtiers may whisper?  
GUIL: It's not as though there isn't precedent.   
ROS: Oh, there's plenty of precedent.  
GUIL: King David had Jonathan, as well as several wives.   
ROS: Alexander the Great had Hephestaion.   
GUIL: Half of the rulers of the Holy Roman Empire had half of the Holy Roman Empire, etcetera.   
ROS: Yes, and don't forget Edward the Second.  
HORATIO _(murmuring)_:  Perhaps not the best example.  
GUIL: Point: Hamlet is royalty. He doesn't have the luxury of marrying for love, and even if he weren't the prince, I believe holy matrimony would be out of the question for the two of you.  
ROS: Wholly out of the question.  
GUIL: So you might as well go along with it and make the best of the situation.  
ROS: You might as well.  
GUIL: And when you are king, you may do as you like.  
HAMLET: Is there no end to your foolish chatter? When I am king I shall have both your heads!  
ROS _(lewdly)_: Both our heads?   
GUIL: I don't think that's what he meant.  
HAMLET: Enough! Leave us now.   
HORATIO: Good friends, I do perceive that your jests, though kind in intent, fall cruelly on his humor.  
ROS _(defensive)_: I didn't mean anything by it.  
HORATIO: Go you now, and we will meet again anon.  
GUIL: We most humbly take our leave of you, then, good gentlemen.  
ROS _(bewildered)_: But I didn't mean anything by it!  
GUIL: There, there. _(pats ROS consolingly.)_ Godspeed your travels, Hamlet. _(He turns to leave)_  
ROS _(following GUIL, calling back lamely to HAMLET and HORATIO)_: And when you return, you must come with us to the theatre!  
HORATIO: God willing, it may be so. Good day to you both.  
_(Exeunt ROS and GUIL)_  
HAMLET: God damn them, and their wicked suppositions and sly insinuations.   
HORATIO: You know them well, my lord, and they cannot help their foolishness. They have ever been quick to jest and lacking in that grace that guides wiser men's tongues, but they do love you.  
HAMLET: They should have their tongues cut out, then, that they may not jest of what they know not. That they should so make light of what you are to me — I cannot admit it.  
HORATIO: They spoke but truth.  
HAMLET: It is a truth I cannot bear.   
HORATIO: Calm yourself, dear Hamlet. Where you go I go. I shall not be parted from you at all.  
HAMLET: No more you shall. Come with me to Elsinore.  
HORATIO: What, tomorrow?  
HAMLET: Yes. As you love me, come with me.   
HORATIO: It shall be as you wish. I will to Denmark with you, to brace you 'gainst what news the king may have.  
HAMLET: My thanks, Horatio. I will requite your love.  
HORATIO: Yours to mine as mine to yours; we need no more between us.  
HAMLET: We will away, then, you and I, to Elsinore.  
_(Exeunt)_



End file.
